Collaborators on the project

Boran Berčić is the team leader. In addition to conduct research on the philosophical aspects of identity, he coordinates the work of the other associates in the project. His research concentrates on the problem of discontinuous existence, Leibniz’s law, essentiality of time and the occurrence of entities. As a project leader, he organizes regular meetings, workgroups, assigning tasks, supervising the work of junior associates, organizing international conferences, and unifying the work done by the associates into a monograph or a collection of papers.

Ana Gavran Miloš’s expertise is in the Ancient Greek philosophy. Her work in the project relates to the systematization and exposition of the ancient writers’ views on the nature of identity. It should be noted that the views’ of the ancient philosophers on the nature of identity are in the focus of the contemporary investigations of the history of philosophy and metaphysics. Especially the interesting problem is related to Chrysippus’ paradox of Theon and Deon, which presents one of the most basic problems for the proponents of the so-called mereological essentialism.

Iris Vidmar holds a PhD in the philosophy of literature. In the project, she investigates the conditions of identity of fictional characters. In recent years, an interesting debate has emerged around the problem how something that does not exist can have identity? In addition, Vidmar works on the problem of the self in modern novels (Musil, Svevo, Pirandello, etc).

Filip Čeč works on the problem of identification. Given that his PhD thesis was on the topic of Free will, he is well acquainted with the issues relating to the topic of an individuals’ identification with values, reasons, groups, etc. In the contemporary philosophy the idea of identification with one’s values has emerged as a potential answer to the problem of delineating the real self and what has been imposed from the outside. Čeč investigates whether this view can be upheld in the face of different objections.

Zdenka Brzović’s main line of research is in the philosophy of science. More specifically, her field of research is in the philosophy of biology, where she investigates the identity of species. Although the debate between the realists and nominalists has started in the age of the classical empiricism, it is still in the focus of debates in the contemporary philosophy of biology. Research questions that she investigates include, among other things, what is determines the nature of species; is it common ancestry, morphological marks, genetic characteristics, or something else?

Dr Marin Biondić, lecturer (University of Rijeka; High school for electrical engineering and computing in Rijeka)

Reasearch:

Marin Biondić’s research is in the field of prenatal and postmortal nonexistence. He published a book on this topic. He studies arguments against the possibility of the discontinuous existence. This is one of the basic questions in the debate on the diachronic identity, that is, the identity through time. The problem of discontinuous existence is especially interesting in the case of the personal identity. Can a person survive a cessation of her existence and continue to be the same person? On this issue, especially relevant work is done by contemporary classics such as Derek Parfit who argued that we can survive our own literal loss of identity.

Marko Jurjako works on the nature of reasons in the context of moral psychology and the evolution of sociality. In the project he investigates the problem of the identity of the ideal self and the role of agency in determining personal identity.

Denis Paušić, PhD candidate (University of Rijeka)

Denis Pausic is a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka where he graduated in the combined study of philosophy and history. He is interested in metaphysics, especially in the problems of nature of time and existence over time. He focuses on space-time analogies, the theory of truthmakers, B-theory of time, and 4D theory of persistence.

Takashi Yagisawa is well-known for his philosophical work in modal metaphysics. In the project, he continuous his research on the problem of identity across possible worlds and the problem of the existence of possible entities. One of the Yagisawa’s research aims is to apply the criterion of the closest continuer in order to solve the problem of identity across possible worlds. Yagisawa will spend some time in Rijeka and hopefully he will participate in the conference organized by the project Identity.